Missio Colonia | Kevin and Kathi in Cologne, Germany

Kevin: On the application for Greater Europe Mission we're required to indicate the church that is sending us out to the field. We value so much this idea of a church family equipping and sending people out as missionaries (Acts 11:19-30). The problem has been that Kathi and I find ourselves in a state of flux when it comes to our church home. Kathi grew up in a small country church in Dellroy, Ohio, but she hasn't been a regular attender there for more than eight years. I came to know the Lord in college, so I've bounced from a number of churches as my situation in life changed. Up until we got married, I had spent the last four years serving at an Evangelical Free Church in Libertyville, Illinois.

When we got married, we decided that we wanted to find a church home together. To our amazement, we quickly found a home at Vineyard Community Church in Libertyville. But, since we have only been at this church for nine months, we struggled to decide which church should send us into the field.

Initially, we were planning on asking the Vineyard to be our sending church, but recently we have been developing a vision for how we could minister to churches as missionaries. In the Intercultural Missions class I'm taking this semester at Trinity, I've learned that a missionary's ministry is actually two-fold: first to the people to whom you're sent, but also to those who sent you. We became excited at the possibility of being able to further the Kingdom by sharing our missions vision with local congregations!

With this in mind, the church Kathi grew up in provides us with a wonderful opportunity to do just that. This church has only recently begun supporting missionary efforts, and they have never sent out missionaries from their congregation. By God's grace, we could have an impact in this church by providing people with a vision of the work the God is doing in this world. But, the possibilities don't end there. We are seeing how we could develop a network of rural supporting churches that we could minister to through our service in the mission field. We're really excited about this other half of missionary ministry.